lections
whatever of the ill-to-do ;—his memory on this point is certain to
become deficient, and the latter act unwisely to remain between the
wind and his vulgarity; a few years may enable them to look down upon
him, when, in his turn, his capital too— staked upon some blundering
speculation, perhaps—has taken to itself wings, and flown away. If one
thing is more uncertain than another, in the middle-classes of England,
it is that of even a life of arduous labour being rewarded in the end
by permanent family prosperity. In England a man may rise up early,
and eat the bread of carefulness, but from our complicated commercial
system, or from other causes, with all his industry, and all his care,
he may find that he has all his life been only laying up poverty for
his old age. This is not so in colonies: there the industry of man
founds families, here it but too often breaks them up. The patient
scrapings of an English life are often scattered by circumstances over
which the gatherer has no control. In colonies they go unmolested to
his descendants, unless he prefer the excitement of speculation to
industry. At the present period, when flocks are becoming
comparatively valueless, from the want of labour, which has fled to
the gold fields, there are excellent chances for a man with a thousand
pounds or two, to get a sheep-run on favourable terms. If two or three
persons, possessing even less, were to join in such a pursuit, it would
form a partnership of a highly profitable nature, provided the parties
could depend on each other's probity and industry—for in New South
Wales it is highly requisite that partners should pull the same way. A
person, even with half the above sum, may profitably invest it in
cattle in a manner which will enable him to look about him. It is
common enough in Australia for a man to purchase cattle, and agree with
a stock-farmer to keep them at his own expense, receiving one half or
two fifths of the increase, and of the profits of butter and cheese.
Thus, both the stock and the profits of the invester are going on while
he may be otherwise employed, or may be waiting for a suitable
location, or may be acquiring the necessary experience to enable him to
commence stock-farm-
